“Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.”
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
No aspect of a couple’s life elicits more fascination, or more fear, than an affair. Adultery unleashes a transgressive force that topples the established order and puts to lie our idea of the enduring transformative power of marriage. Infidelity humbles us. We are reminded that we don’t control destiny, let alone our partner.
“How could you do this to me? I hate you! I love you! Get out of here! Don’t leave me! How can I ever trust you again? How can I forgive you?”
The majority view is that affairs are always harmful and can never help a marriage; compassion for the betrayed comes easy, so too does dispensing detailed repair advice for the unfaithful to show remorse, to repent. I ask: Can we think of betrayal as well as growth? Can we explore the many meanings of an affair (different for the hurt partner and for the unfaithful) and imagine possibilities for repair and revitalization?
To reestablish trust and forgiveness, we need to be less categorical and more nuanced. We may not fully forgive, yet partially accept. We may feel guilty and remorseful for hurting our beloved, while we hold dear the freedom and renewal that the affair gave us.
Sometimes, it isn’t our partner we aim to leave, rather the person we have become. It is obvious today that many of us will have two, even three marriages in our adult lives. It’s just that some of us will do it with the same person.
Esther Perel is a couples therapist and author of “Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic.” www.estherperel.com
